Paçoca de Pinhão

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Pressure cooker, at least 4 liters
• •Wide heavy skillet or saute pan
• •Pilão or large mortar and pestle
• •Potato masher, if you do not have a pilão

Instructions

1. 1

   Cook the pinhão

   Put the pinhão in a pressure cooker with enough water to cover by 2 inches and 1 teaspoon of salt. Cook under pressure for 35 to 40 minutes, then let the pressure come down naturally. Peel while warm enough to handle, because cold pinhão clings to its shell like it owns the place. It should be tender enough to bite cleanly and crush with pressure; if it fights back, cook it longer.

   Pinhão is best in its season, usually the colder months in southern Brazil. That's when it's cheaper, sweeter, and hasn't traveled a week to reach you.
2. 2

   Chop and season

   Roughly chop the peeled pinhão into small pieces, leaving some chunks. Season the beef with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and the black pepper. Small beef cubes brown faster and mix better with the pinhão, so every spoonful has a bit of everything instead of one lonely chunk doing all the work.

3. 3

   Brown the beef

   Heat a wide heavy pan over medium-high heat, add the oil or lard, and brown the beef in two batches. Let each batch sit until the underside gets deep brown, then stir and brown the other sides. Don't crowd the pan. Too much meat drops the heat, the beef releases water, and you get grey cubes boiling in their own sadness instead of flavor.

   Those brown bits stuck to the pan are not a mistake. They're the base of the taste, and the onion will help pull them back into the paçoca.
4. 4

   Build the refogado

   Lower the heat to medium and add the onion to the same pan. Cook, stirring and scraping the bottom, until the onion softens, turns see-through, and picks up the beef color, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute, just until you smell it. Garlic burns fast, and burnt garlic is bitter enough to boss the whole dish around.

5. 5

   Toast the farinha

   Add the farinha to the pan and stir for 3 to 4 minutes, until it smells nutty and looks lightly golden. This matters. Raw farinha tastes dusty, toasted farinha tastes like dinner. If the pan looks dry, add the optional butter and let it melt through.

6. 6

   Add the pinhão

   Stir in the chopped pinhão and return the beef to the pan with any juices on the plate. Mix until the pinhão is coated with the refogado and farinha. Taste a pinch now. It should be savory, gently sweet from the pinhão, and just salty enough to make you want rice and beans beside it.

7. 7

   Pound to texture

   Transfer the mixture to a pilão and pound in batches until the pinhão breaks down and the beef shreds a little into the farinha. Stop while it is still crumbly, not a paste. A gente wants a paçoca that holds together when pressed with a spoon, then falls apart softly on the plate. No pilão? Use a potato masher in a sturdy bowl, working patiently. It loses a little of the old texture, but dinner gets solved.

8. 8

   Finish and serve

   Fold in the parsley and green onion, taste for salt, and serve warm or at room temperature. Put it next to arroz soltinho, feijão with a creamy caldo, and couve refogada. That's not fancy. That's the Brazilian everyday plate doing its quiet, serious work.

Chef Tips

• •If you buy raw pinhão, cook extra. Peeled cooked pinhão freezes well, and future you will be smug for exactly the right reason.
• •Charque or carne seca can replace the fresh beef, but soak and desalinate it first or the paçoca turns into a salt lick. Cooked shredded meat from yesterday's pot also works, with less browning and a little less depth.
• •Do not use a seasoning packet here. Onion, garlic, beef browned properly, and toasted farinha already know their job.
• •The farinha decides the texture. Coarse farinha gives a better crumb; very fine flour can turn pasty if you pound too much.
• •Serve this as a side, not a lonely mountain. It wants moisture beside it: beans, sautéed greens, maybe a spoonful of bean caldo over the rice.

Advance Preparation

• •Cook and peel the pinhão up to 3 days ahead; keep it covered in the fridge.
• •Cooked peeled pinhão freezes for up to 3 months. Thaw in the fridge or warm briefly before chopping.
• •The finished paçoca keeps 4 days in the fridge and reheats best in a covered skillet with a spoonful of water to loosen it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 205g)